NEWPORT BEACH, CA.- The Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) presents a unique exhibition titled Two Schools of Cool. OCMAs history is rooted in Los Angeles art and artists of the 1960s and 1970s. Two Schools of Cool reexamines a group of these artists, pairing elder statesmen of cool with artists from a new generation that mostly emerged in Los Angeles beginning in 2000. The exhibition provides the two generations with space to explore, experiment, and provoke through collaborative projects. The exhibition is a lab that espouses similarities between the generations as well as changes and shifts in the art world over the last four decades, including the increasing prominence of female artists, distinct methodologies, and the use of new technologies. The culminating exhibition presents five distinct installations, each conceived, developed, and created by a pair of artists.

The collaborating artist teams are: John Baldessari and Shana Lutker, Llyn Foulkes and Stanya Kahn, George Herms and Sarah Cain, Allen Ruppersberg and Amanda Ross-Ho, and Robert Williams and Ed Moses. The exhibition will include select public programs during the run of the exhibition, including artist talks, performances and workshops.

The mixed media projects, developed in the months leading up to the exhibition, include a video and sound installation, a participatory installation involving choice and selection; a site specific installation incorporating wall painting, found objects, assemblage, paintings, text and works on paper; an artist- curated installation of paintings in which each artist will provide a critique of the others practice in the form of wall text as well as a public dialogue. The installations incorporate elements contributed by each artist, and are discrete collaborative projects as determined and outlined together by the pair.

A fully illustrated catalog that includes an introductory essay by curator Sarah Bancroft and extensive interviews with the artist pairs, as well as biographical information, accompanies the exhibition. Serving as a document of the exhibition, the catalog will be released in December 2011 to allow for final installation photographs of the exhibition.

Two Schools of Cool is organized by the Orange County Museum of Art and curated by Sarah C. Bancroft. The exhibition was initiated and is sponsored by the Fellows of Contemporary Art. Additional support is provided by the Beall Family Foundation.